Mention in NZ Herald Article About Kelly Clarkson

Clay was mentioned in this concert preview for Kelly Clarkson's upcoming concert in New Zealand. Negative content alert.

How to be an ideal Idol
12.11.05
By Rebecca Barry

There's something you might not know about Kelly Clarkson, from the mouth of the American Idol herself: "I have multiple personalities."

Anyone who has studied her lyrics may have already worked this out. "I can breathe for the first time," she sings on Since U Been Gone before lapsing into asthmatic trauma on Behind those Hazel Eyes and Addicted: "I can't breathe."

On the phone from London, one of many foreign cities on her promo schedule this month, Clarkson is only joking of course. The only personality she has revealed is the polite, effervescent one that in 2002 become the first American Idol.

Clarkson has been with her band for nearly four years and refers to them as her extended family. But her own upbringing wasn't easy. She grew up in Burleson, Texas, and her parents split when she was a child. She stayed with her mother, her brother with their father, and her sister with an aunt.

Sure about her path from a young age, she moved to LA in her late teens and got a handful of small TV parts. Then she returned to Texas, where she worked as a cocktail waitress.

Then came the talent quest that has since made household names - albeit for a short period - of United States winners Ruben Studdard and Clay Aiken. Why has Clarkson done so much better?